Ryan Garcia has had time to reflect.
The star boxer appeared to be spiraling out of control for most of 2024, both in his personal life with substance abuse and with his actions before and after his blockbuster boxing match against Devin Haney. Somehow, through all of that, Garcia put on the best performance of his career against Haney en route to a majority decision win — until he failed a post-match drug test that resulted in a year-long suspension and his career-changing victory being overturned into a no contest.
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Ready to return to box Rolando Romero on Friday, Garcia spoke about his year away on Tuesday’s edition of “The Ariel Helwani Show.” Garcia said he hasn’t drank alcohol since before camp for Romero began.
“I just have a whole different mindset this time around. Kind of just prepared myself as you would a professional boxer,” Garcia said of his new approach.
“You gotta be professional, you gotta be on point with everything if you want to be the best fighter in the world. So, [the other way] worked for me once, but you can’t keep doing that, you can’t sustain that.
“It’s just part of my story,” Garcia continued. “It’s one of those moments where I was just kind of dealing with whatever I was dealing with, but honestly, I don’t really regret anything. I don’t regret nothing in my life. I just take everything as OK, I learn from that moment. That’s not the way to go, that’s not the way I want to represent myself, but I don’t really like to say ‘regret.'”
Rewind backward to the beginning of 2024, and Garcia, 26, had quickly become one of the most unhinged characters in combat sports. Garcia said he was never worried about his safety, whether through his impaired shenanigans or what were self-proclaimed troll attempts toward other fighters. Thing got so bad with Garcia that he even found himself banned by one of boxing’s primary sanctioning bodies, the WBC, after a barrage of racist, homophobic and discriminatory social media tirades.
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While there are no regrets with how he lived his life, Garcia is remorseful about one aspect about how he conducted himself during that public spiral.
“With this day and age, everybody’s saying a lot of crazy s***,” Garcia said. “You see all the streamers saying whatever they want. It’s just kind of the day and age we’re in, but it’s not the way I want to go about how I handle myself. That’s just kind of the generation we live in — everybody’s saying stupid s***, and for a long time people said stupid s*** about me. And I started saying I played the game they were playing, and I guess I played it too hard.
“At the end of the day, I just don’t want to go down that route though. I just kind of want to keep myself more professional and be the best fighter I can be, and not get caught up in that trolling game. Do I regret any of that? Of course. There’s a lot of stupid s*** you say. Everybody around you, you and your boys, if everybody was with you guys, recording every conversation, you’re going to say some stupid s***. So yeah, in that regard, I do regret it. A lot of people look up to me.”
The Haney rivalry heated up thanks, in part, to Garcia’s pre-fight antics, but ultimately Garcia feels there was never too much heat between them. If anything, it was more of Haney’s father and coach, Bill Haney, whom Garcia still isn’t overly fond of.
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“I had a little something with Bill yesterday, but other than that, nothing with Devin,” Garcia said. “Devin doesn’t really talk. It’s really his dad. I don’t think Devin has really ever said anything to me. It’s always started off with his dad, so it’s never him.
“[Bill] just said I look smaller. … He’s trying to say, ‘Oh, now you’re not on PEDs,’ that’s what he was trying to say. I think Bill gets everybody going, but it’s good for boxing. Bill gets us going, and I guess Devin takes some repercussions for his daddy’s words.”
While Garcia was suspended, he attempted to compete in an exhibition for Japan’s RIZIN Fighting Federation against talented kickboxing champion Rukiya Anpo, however plans fizzled after Garcia suffered a wrist injury.
Garcia is still open to a match in Japan, but first has to get through Romero at Friday’s big event in New York’s Times Square — and most likely after that, a rematch with Haney. Despite the shift from his originally expected opponent Isaac Cruz, Garcia is ready to roll against his former sparring partner.
Ryan Garcia and Rolando Romero face off during grand arrivals before their WBA welterweight title fight in New York City. (Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy/Getty Images)
(Cris Esqueda/Golden Boy via Getty Images)
“As a person, he’s hilarious without trying to be funny,” Garcia said of Romero. “He’s just a guy that, I don’t know, I kind of like being around him. He’s just a funny dude, and I don’t know if he’s trying to be funny half of the time, but he cracks me up. I would be friends with him outside the ring I think. Inside the ring, I’m ready to destroy this guy.
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“As our careers progressed, I just kind of blew [Romero] out of the water. He wasn’t near my stratosphere as far as performances and whatnot. I mean, he’s only had 16 fights, so he doesn’t really fight that much, to be honest. There’s not a lot to go off of him. It’s just for me, this was the best option because ‘Pitbull’ [Cruz] didn’t agree to the fight, which we were trying to get down.”
After spending most of his career with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, Garcia’s immediate future could be a compelling one heading into 2026. Romero marks the first of Garcia’s final two bouts with Golden Boy. After that, he plans to follow in the footsteps of many of his fellow boxing stars.
“I’ve got two more fights with Golden Boy, I believe. After that, I don’t see why not start my own promotion company and start running my own business,” Garcia said. “I feel like that’s the natural progression in any superstar boxer’s career. Oscar did it. Floyd [Mayweather Jr.] did it. [Saul] ‘Canelo’ [Alvarez] is pretty much doing it, he’s not really signed to anybody.
“That’s the natural progression. That’s just what it is, and if promoters get mad, I mean, they’re really being hypocrites in a way.”
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